From IT?
by inK.AddicTion
Summary: Molly always knew that Jim wasn't what he said he was. She just didn't care. After all, all's fair in an invisible prank war...


**From IT?**

It was a warm, sunny day. Upstairs, sunlight would have been pouring in through the windows, lighting up the laminate covers on the plastic tables in the canteen. The sky was blue, there was barely a cloud in sight, and the sun was cheerful and strong.

It was the sort of day that optimistic Molly Hooper loved.

Unfortunately, Doctor Molly Hooper worked in the mortuary, which had no windows, and no natural lighting, and was reliant on the bright white electric strips in the ceiling that illuminated the room in a harsh white medical glow. Every surface gleamed in the mortuary. Grime was not tolerated. Everything was sharp, clear edges, and razor-sharp strong lines.

Molly should have hated it, with her preference for warm, cosy clutter, rounded, soft shapes and the adoring warmth of fluffy cats, but somehow, she didn't. The alien, cold mortuary appealed to her, to the clinical and professional Doctor Hooper who made her living carving up the quiet still bodies of the dead, just as the sharp, elegant lines of a detective's swirling Belstaff coat, the defined shadows underneath high cheekbones, slanting jawlines and icy eyes evoked a rush of frozen desire.

She liked the cleanliness, the order, the cold gleaming lights. Oddly enough the mortuary's appearance reminded her of Sherlock at his most clinical, razor sharp, intelligent, thoughts so quick and fast they didn't stop to avoid hurting him before they tumbled out of his mouth.

It was the twenty seventh of June, and Molly had been up until eleven o clock the previous night, helping Sherlock solve a particularly tricky murder involving a jealous sister blackmailing their mother to kill her son, however improbable it might seem. It turned out the mother, Mrs Waters, was a heroine addict, and her daughter Amy Waters had apparently threatened to turn her over to the police if she didn't kill her son.

Molly had been doing the autopsy on David Waters and had found the needle lodged in his right calf that had enabled Sherlock to solve the case. She felt quite proud of herself, but also very tired.

Molly ran through her list of autopsies and concluded she had a free hour. She decided to take her lunch break and called her intern in, a loud, pretty girl called Georgia who frankly intimidated Molly rather more than she'd liked to admit.

Break secured, Molly removed her lab coat and hung it up on her hook. She left the mortuary and made her way to the cafeteria. There was a cup of coffee calling her name. Lost in her mind, Molly went through the actions of working the coffee machine with mechanical movements. It was just as such that she turned and completely missed the man standing next to her.

The coffee cup went flying. Jerked out of her thoughts, Molly found herself gasping out desperate apologies as the man yelped at the scalding coffee. His white tee was irreversibly stained.

"Oh I'm sorry!" she cried out immediately.

"It's fine," the other said quickly, cheeks flushing slightly with embarrassment. He looked almost as awkward as her. "Hi."

Molly felt her cheeks heat at the bashful kind of interest in his eyes. "Hi, I'm Molly. I work in the morgue." She waited for him to go running.

"You're a pathologist, huh? You must be pretty smart," he grinned, and his dark eyes lit up with a sparkle, "I'm Jim, from IT."

Observing the casual stance, the jeans, the soaked t-shirt, and the glitter in his dark brown eyes, Molly smiled and blushed at him, kindly.

_Jim from IT? _she thought. _I think not._

Jim from IT was nice. He was kind, awkward, flushing, and he liked Glee and wore white T-shirts and jeans. He liked Sherlock Holmes, he sympathized with Molly, he petted Toby and he was a fantastic kisser.

It was a shame that he didn't exist. Molly was quite fond of him.

At this point, another person might have wondered why shy Molly Hooper decided to stay with a man that she knew, without a semblance of doubt, was not only fucking his employed sniper behind her back, but also murdering countless innocent people and running one of the biggest crime organisations the world had seen.

It had a very simple answer; Molly was curious.

She had already determined, via Jim's sympathetic understanding and quiet regard for Sherlock Holmes that matched her own so well that Jim was probably after an in with the detective, or even his brother, who worked somewhere in the government (her mind conjured an image of a refined, restrained Sherlock in a suit, perhaps twirling an umbrella, and she shivered). She doubted that Jim quite understood how little she meant to Sherlock Holmes.

No, she was more curious to see how far she could push him before he snapped.

Molly sent him out to do ridiculous things, fluffy, stupidly, nauseatingly romantic things only people did in movies and romance stories. She expected a rose every day, watched endless gaggingly sweet films curled up on his lap, ate sugary popcorn, played the blushing maiden, and treated him to such vile endearments such as "honey bear" or "schmooks". It was glorious to see the twitch in his eye develop with each passing horror.

So far, Molly was impressed. He'd even managed to survive the third Glee marathon, nail-painting and hairdressing. Molly had laughed herself silly as she imagined sending the most fearsome criminal to exist home with his glittery pink toenails and shiny blue satin pajamas.

It was a massive prank, and only Molly knew she was playing it.

If Jim had been any normal person, he would have broken up with Molly long before. But he needed her, however much he might think he didn't, he still needed her to get close to Sherlock, and Jim had no real understanding how normal relationships worked anyway. It worked very often in her favor, and before she knew it, she had ended up with a new car, phone, rent paid for a year, and various other boons that came with having a psychotic criminal mastermind for a boyfriend.

All in all, it was quite win-win.

Therefore, when Moriarty revealed himself, she was not surprised. She was more surprised when Sherlock came to tell her the news, and there was a hint of sympathy in his eyes for the first time.

He never understood why she laughed herself silly.


End file.
